


Still Here

by Lexen (bluedragoninamber)



Series: A Magical Rainbow:  A Collection of All My Rare Pair Romance Stories [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mature Love, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:37:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedragoninamber/pseuds/Lexen
Summary: After Minerva McGonagall is hit by four stunners, Alastor Moody sits by her bedside in St. Mungo's.  As he waits for his love to wake up, he remembers shared moments in their lives.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please Read: This story is mine. I am the original and only author. It was first posted on FFN more than five years ago. I don’t remember exactly when. I took all my stories down off the internet and left the HP fandom due to personal reasons. I am now returning to the fandom and reposting some of my old stories. When I posted these stories on FFN, my penname was Lexen (and sometimes Hope4astalemate and bluedragoninamber) though I usually went by Lex. To repeat, this story is mine. Please don’t claim I have stolen it from someone else. Also, please don’t ask me to repost a particular story. I will be reposting only those stories which I choose to repost, and I will only be reposting them here.

** Disclaimer ** **: I don’t own it, and I am making no money off of it. **

** AN ** **: This is a collection of five drabbles with the pairing of Minerva McGonagall/Alastor Moody. There is a warning for this entire collection for implied lemons and mature themes. It is AU in that Minerva’s marriage never happened and takes place at St. Mungo’s as Alastor is waiting for Minerva to wake up from being hit with four Stunners. The prompt was “chartreuse.”**

St. Mungo’s saw far too much of Alastor Moody. He was in and out of the place enough times in a year for ten people. Sometimes, he was the one injured. But other times, it was someone he cared about. Though Alastor made a big show of not caring about anyone beyond the limits of his job, there were a select few who knew that it was all an act.

Minerva McGonagall knew that better than most, and of the ones Alastor cared about, she garnered the lion’s share of that care.

Four Stunners…what were the idiots thinking? Alastor shook his head…none of his trainees at least, thank Merlin. But when Kingsley had let slip what had happened, Kingsley had been obliged to restrain him from going after the men himself.

Alastor beat a path to the hospital instead. 

Now, he sat next to Minerva’s unconscious form, restlessly flipping through a book that Pomona had sent to the hospital from Minerva’s rooms at the castle. It was Scottish poetry, written in Gaelic with an English translation beside it. Alastor, of course, had no interest in Scottish poetry or in the obtuse Gaelic that his mother had tried and only partially succeeded in teaching him.

But he recognized the book immediately. The cover was chartreuse, a bright yellow-green that looked utterly out of place in the hospitals antiseptically drab rooms.

Alastor had not realized that she kept it. The book had been his first gift to her, early on in their relationship, early enough that the only thing he had felt safe giving her as a gift was yet another book of the awful poetry (in his mind, at least) that she was so fond of. And she had been delighted with it, or appeared to be, throwing her arms around him in a way that Minerva, even as a young woman, rarely did.

He had thought she was simply being nice. He was terrible at gift giving, and he knew it. He couldn’t possibly have gotten it right.

But she had kept it. His spare, precise script was inside the front cover. The chartreuse cover was worn as though she had reread it many times.

Alastor held it in his hands for a long moment. He glanced at Minerva lying on the bed. Opening the book, he cleared his throat and started to read.


	2. Chapter 2

** Disclaimer ** **: I don’t own it, and I am making no money off of it. **

** AN ** **: This is a collection of five drabbles with the pairing of Minerva McGonagall/Alastor Moody. It is AU in that Minerva’s marriage never happened and takes place at St. Mungo’s as Alastor is waiting for Minerva to wake up from being hit with four Stunners. The prompt was Natasha Bedingfield’s song, “A Pocketful of Sunshine.”**

He paused for a moment and rested his voice. The color of the book reminded him of sunshine…sunshine like the day they had first come together. She had been doing administrative work for the aurors, and he had found himself with no cases. Alastor had already developed a reputation for wanting little to do with romantic entanglements, but he was not made of stone. Minerva had caught his interest from her first day. She was quiet and efficient, but he could tell there was fire just beneath the surface of her cool exterior. She was single too, unusual for a woman of her age.

He invited her on a picnic.

The fare was simple, sandwiches and fruit and lemonade instead of wine. Alastor had no Malfoy smoothness, but he was a gentleman when it came to women. If Minerva came to him, it would be of her own volition.

She wore a light blue dress and left her black hair down, letting the breeze play with it as they walked through the sunny field. He lay down a blanket, and they sat down together. His playful attempts to feed her the fruit were less than successful, but she just laughed and waved her wand to clean up the mess.

Then she waved her wand in a very different pattern and spoke a few words. Alastor stopped short and stared at her. He recognized the contraception spell, and he hastily cast a privacy spell around the two of them.

“Minerva…” he began. 

She silenced him with a finger to his lips. “Just Min, Alastor. Just Min.” Then she was pulling her dress over her head and he was fumbling for his trousers.

The blue dress had looked lovely on her, but it didn’t take him long to realize that Minerva looked even more beautiful dressed only in sunlight. She was brightness and light to drive out every bit of darkness he had ever touched. And he felt like as much of a virgin as she was, as if it was his first time all over again.

With Min, things were always new, new like the sunrise they watched the following morning. In those moments in her arms, she claimed a piece of his heart.

Alastor sighed as he opened the book again. Once Min claimed something, she never gave it back.


	3. Chapter 3

** Disclaimer ** **: I don’t own it, and I am making no money off of it. **

** AN ** **: This is a collection of five drabbles with the pairing of Minerva McGonagall/Alastor Moody. It is AU in that Minerva’s marriage never happened and takes place at St. Mungo’s as Alastor is waiting for Minerva to wake up from being hit with four Stunners. The prompt was “quill.”**

There was never a question of marriage with them, both being too caught up in their jobs to be bound to each other. So frequently, when he would visit her at Hogwarts, he would watch her quill busily scratching away at her students’ work. When he looked at her face, he saw peace, the same sort of peace that she insisted she felt in his body during the stolen moments they shared. 

Alastor supposed she was right. Too many years in the field and too many injuries had left him far too paranoid to trust anyone…except for her. He remembered losing the eye. Alastor had not told her, assuming that she would find him repulsive now. But after the surgery to extract his ruined eye, he woke in St. Mungo’s and looked beside him. There she was, a pile of scrolls beside her, scratching away at them with her quill. When she heard him shifting, she turned.

“I should have your neck for not telling me,” Minerva said tartly, though her smile took most of the bite out of it. 

He grimaced. “I’m a mess, Min. What little looks I had are gone. I couldn’t imagine that you’d want me after this.”

She reached out, tucking a tousled strand of hair back behind his ear. “Silly man, if that is what you thought than you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

She kissed him gently and then handed him another stack of scrolls and a quill.

“Do you really expect me to help you grade?” Alastor asked wryly.

She burst out laughing. “I think not! This is your paperwork, not mine. No rest for the weary.”

As she turned back to her own work, Alastor looked down at the quill in his hand. It was one of Minerva’s own, gold with hints of Gryffindor red. It wasn’t anything like the quills he usually used. But it would do well enough.

Alastor glanced back at Minerva. He thought about his missing eye. He thought about her kiss.

Alastor smiled. This quill would do just fine for him. 


	4. Chapter 4

** Disclaimer ** **: I don’t own it, and I am making no money off of it. **

** AN ** **: This is a collection of five drabbles with the pairing of Minerva McGonagall/Alastor Moody. It is AU in that Minerva’s marriage never happened and takes place at St. Mungo’s as Alastor is waiting for Minerva to wake up from being hit with four Stunners. The prompt was “swimming.”**

Alastor set down the book and rubbed his eyes. His good leg was getting uncomfortable so he stood up, cursing his other leg, the wooden substitute that had snatched from him the ability to move freely.

Minerva had stayed with him when he lost the leg as well. It was just as well. The St. Mungo’s staff never had an easy time with him since he felt the same way about hospitals as he felt about Death Eaters. It did not make him a particularly good patient.

As soon as they could, they released him into Minerva’s care to recuperate. It was she who had the idea to take him swimming in the lake on her family’s property. Only the two of them were in the estate anyway, save for a few house elves who wisely stayed out of the way. 

Alastor had been reluctant at first. “Swimming, Min? You must be joking. I can barely walk with this thing. In the water, I can’t even take it with me so how am I going to manage to move?”

Minerva shook her head. “Do you still not trust me, Alastor? Water will provide what your missing leg cannot.” She smirked. “Besides, I intend to join you, and I won’t be wearing one of those ridiculous bathing costumes.”

That got Alastor’s attention. Granted, both he and Minerva weren’t as young as they used to be, but their attraction to each other had not waned. They had just learned to be a bit more creative.

“What are you going to be wearing?” Alastor said, feeling slightly tongue-tied.

“Come and see,” she offered, and he could only follow helplessly after her.

The lake was cool and shaded, and Alastor fumbled with his leg as he removed it. He unbuttoned his shirt but then hesitated.

A splash distracted him from his fumbling. Minerva sat on a smooth ledge, a waterfall pouring down around her. And she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

Alastor swallowed hard. One part of his anatomy was working exactly how it was supposed to.

“Are you coming in?” Minerva asked playfully. The desire in her green eyes had not changed, even now.

He left his self-consciousness there on the ledge with the rest of his clothes and his wooden leg as Minerva’s eager arms welcomed him into the water.

The water held his body, but it was she who held him.


	5. Chapter 5

** Disclaimer ** **: I don’t own it, and I am making no money off of it. **

** AN ** **: This is a collection of five drabbles with the pairing of Minerva McGonagall/Alastor Moody. It is AU in that Minerva’s marriage never happened and takes place at St. Mungo’s as Alastor is waiting for Minerva to wake up from being hit with four Stunners. The prompt was “apple.”**

Shaking himself out of his reminiscing, Alastor looked down at Minerva again. Her color was better, and the healer had said that she would be waking soon. Alastor had held his tongue and had not told the healer that he knew that already. He could smell her magic.

His ability to smell magic was a strange thing. In the aurors, the talent had been rare though not completely unknown. He was the only British auror to have it. His own magic smelled like bitter herbs, foreign spices, and black tea. Minerva had laughed when he told her but had pointed out that, considering his magical eye and his wooden leg had been made overseas, it was no surprise that their foreign magic had influenced his own. As for the tea, well, he was British after all.

Minerva’s magic smelled different from his own but appealing in its own right. Not surprisingly given her feline animagus, there was catnip. That embarrassed Minerva, but Alastor made a point of telling her he envied her. He’d never managed to become an animagus, but she could change with scarcely a thought. There was cinnamon too, and Alastor suspected that the lively spice was that fire he’d sensed in her their very first time together.

However, stronger than anything else in Minerva’s magical scent was apples. Fresh, ripe apples seemed to hover in the air around her like an embrace. It was a smell that he found both comforting and alluring. His mother’s best dish had been apple pie, and apples had been the fruit that he had clumsily fed to Minerva during their first date. When he wanted to do something special for Minerva, he knew that he could always offer her a luscious red apple or a slice of warm, cinnamon-topped apple pie. 

Alastor had begun to smell apples half an hour before the healer had come in. Ever since, the smell had been getting stronger as Minerva shifted in bed and her hands moved restlessly as her body prepared to wake.

He turned in his chair, leaned down, and took Minerva’s hand in his.

Her lips formed into a tired smile before her eyes were even open.

“Alastor,” she said, her voice rough from disuse. “You’re here. You’re still here.”

His scarred face broke into an answering smile. “Yes, Min. I am.”

The smell of apples embraced him as he leaned down to kiss her.


End file.
